I have a sketchy memory of my paternal grandparents’ visits in the late 40s after the war – Grannie Dent always had some “droewors” (dried “boerewors” or farmer’s sausage) and chocolate “buttons“ from Wellington Fruitgrowers in her handbag while Grandfather was perhaps somewhat remote/aloof.
We saw Uncle George and Aunty Rita, who lived in Roodebloem Street, upper Woodstock Estate (just below De Waal Drive) – they gave me a beautiful copy of “Jock of the Bushveld” which I kept for many years, and a Birthday Book which I still have. We saw more of Uncle Willy, Aunty Keesha, Lucille and Willem and very occasionally, because he resided in Pretoria, Uncle Gordon - although I do remember him marrying Anne (Hambleton) and spending a Saturday morning with them on Camps Bay beach.
(Ed: If my memory serves me correctly, this was the last time I came into contact with my cousin Patricia before having lunch together some 65 years later with our spouses in Port Elizabeth - March 2020!)
A contemporary “classic” was a cine film produced by Uncle Willy in the Hermann’s garden starring Bobby as the Bad Witch, Glynn as a fairy and I’m not sure of the roles of our cousins. Being the older, this was all very much beneath me and I would not participate.
Bobby and I were in the bath one evening – late 1940’s - when Mom announced that Grannie Dent had died and it was not long before Grandfather came down from Salisbury to stay with us briefly. He re-located to Milnerton but passed away shortly thereafter.
I joined the 1st Camps Bay wolf-cub pack and first became a “Seconder” before achieving the exalted rank of “Sixer”. The Scout Hall where we met was in the Little Glen close to where Les and Beryl lived. Ethel Symmonds was our “Akela”.
(Ed: The Symmonds family was an old and well respected Camps Bay family. I met Tommy Symmonds - co-incidentally best friend of Brian Barends - whilst serving in the Rhodesian Territorial Army in the early 1970’s. We met socially too on a few occasions thereafter. He had a son, also called Grant, who was an excellent sportsman.)
On my parents return home one day - I was 11 - they found me holding my hand over my mouth – they were horrified to find I had smashed my two good, white top front teeth on the bottom of the indoor, saltwater swimming baths! (Later demolished.)
I spent, no doubt at great expense, virtually every afternoon for the next two weeks at the dentist (Gersohn?) above the Adelphi cinema in Sea Point whilst he filed and drilled to make a plastic jacket for one tooth and a corner gold filling for the other. This was the beginning of my constant terror of dentists.
A really memorable time came about in 1949 when we went on a winter family holiday to the Transvaal. We children were kitted out with matching dark brown corduroy outfits and off we went to the north in the Studebaker - by now christened the “Yellow Peril”.
I recall us stopping in Winburg where Boswell’s Circus was in town and seeing at very close range live elephants.
On to Pretoria where we stayed with the Stierlin’s at the Arcadia Hotel, in Beatrix Street and then in company with Uncle Gordon in his Studebaker Commodore – inherited from his father - we went off via Springs, where we visited with old friends the Ross-Munro’s, through the Eastern Transvaal to the Kruger National Park.
We visited Pretorius Kop and Skukuza camps and saw many animals - this experience was definitely the spark to my later passion for the wild. We returned heading south for the Cape via Knysna – where we stayed at Leisure Isle - and George along the Garden Route.